Thought:
One of the unspoken hopes or dreams of those who followed Jesus those three years
was that he would, somehow, get rid of the wrong in their world. When Jesus
suggested he would have to die in order for that to happen, few understood what
he was talking about, nor did they believe that was what it would take to rid
the world of evil.
Evil
comes in many shapes and sizes. It was so in Jesus’ day, and it is the same
today. Satan does exist—our broken society testifies to his reality. Satan
harasses us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Satan crafts
specific attacks for each individual. Temptation is Satan’s primary weapon to
destroy us. However, God uses every temptation as an opportunity to develop us.
Every time we choose to do good instead of sin, we are growing in the character
of Christ, and developing the fruits of the spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control.
Today,
Christians from all over the world want the same thing as the early disciples.
They want to rid the world of wrong-doing. We continue to struggle with worldly
temptations. It is not God that leads us into temptations, but Satan the “evil
one.” God allows us to be tested by temptations, but God was not the source of
the temptation, and he also keeps us safe from Satan. Even Jesus was tempted in
the wilderness by Satan to sin, but he did not sin, instead he prayed. It was
Jesus that suggested we should pray to God to “deliver us from evil.” Jesus taught
us by example when he asked God to “deliver” him from the cross, if possible.
Until God’s Reign, we will continue to be tempted to sin, and will need to pray
what Jesus suggested, “Oh, God, deliver us from evil.”
We
have seen some horrific evil in our times, for example, war, that led to
concentration camps, bombings, such as Hiroshima, and terrorist attacks, such
as 9/11.Thousands of innocent people have died because of the evilness in the
world. The subject of evil just doesn’t go away. As disciples, we should pray
to be delivered from these trying times and for deliverance from Satan and his
deceit.
Prayer:
Jesus, thank you for sealing the verdict: evil will be destroyed when God’s
Reign is here. Give us insight into the evil that we, as good people with good
intentions, might nonetheless do. Give us the strength to confess our sin, to
repent, and to forgive others. Deliver us and the world from the evil that we
and our nation might do. Amen.
Questions:
1.
What
do you consider the most serious evils we deal with in the world today?
2.
What
is your own daily confrontations with evil, wrong-doing, injustice, and sin?
3.
What
Christlike character quality can you develop by defeating the most common
temptation you face?
